Murder trial to begin Wednesday for Memphis insurance agent

Testimony is scheduled to begin Wednesday in the murder case of a Cordova insurance agent accused of killing his wife in 2008.

Joseph Caronna is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Tina Caronna, a financial services executive whose body was found Oct. 27, 2008, in an SUV left on a dead end street in Bartlett.

She died of asphyxiation.

After two days of jury selection, a panel of 12 women and four men was chosen to hear the highly publicized case in Criminal Court. Four jurors will be randomly selected and dismissed as alternates at the end of the trial, which is expected to last about two weeks.

Jurors will be sequestered throughout the trial.

State prosecutors say Caronna, 48, an insurance agent and investment adviser, killed his 44-year-old wife to cover up gambling losses, financial wrongdoing and a long-running affair that continued for a while after his wife's death.

Defense attorneys call the state's case for murder "underwhelming," saying there is little or no forensic proof that Caronna killed his wife.

Caronna, who faces life in prison if convicted as charged, has been in jail without bond since his arrest in March of 2009 at a Jackson, Tenn., motel, where he was found registered under an assumed name.

Tina Caronna attended Skyview Academy and the University of Memphis and was a vice president with Cantor Fitzgerald financial services. She also was president-elect of the Corvette Memphis Club.

Jurors chosen from a 100-member pool include three nurses, two other health care workers, a utility company worker, an algebra teacher, a school psychologist, a computer operator, a cruise ship employee, a homemaker, a private school employee, a firefighter, a materials handler, an engraver and an early-learning specialist.

State prosecutors are Thomas Henderson, Karen Cook and Danielle McCollum.

The defense attorneys are Rusty White, Alicia Kutch and Cathy Kent, all of the Shelby County Public Defenders Office.